Do you want to improve your English even faster? Get our Learning Guide for each podcast and get more vocabulary, language explanations, sample sentences, comprehension questions, cultural notes, and more.

In the Learning Guide: Get a full transcript (written version of every word you hear), vocabulary list and sample sentences, and comprehension questions.

In “What Else Does it Mean,” learn the other meanings of “trunk” and “shot.”
In the “Culture Note,” learn about “Roadside Assistance Programs.”
““Roadside assistance programs” or “emergency roadside assistance programs” provide “assistance” (help) to drivers when they have problems while they are driving…” – READ MORE in the Learning Guide
…

ON WEDNESDAY
English Cafe 320
Topics: American Cities: Columbus, Ohio; Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII; limit versus limitation; for X person to undercut set targets; to sponge off (someone)

In the Learning Guide: Get a full transcript (written version of every word you hear).
In “What Insiders Know,” you will read about “The Columbus Day Controversy.”
“The United States “celebrates” (recognizes and honors) Christopher Columbus’s arrival to the Americas on October 12, 1492 with an official holiday each year. It is celebrated on the second Monday each October…” – READ MORE in the Learning Guide
…

ON FRIDAYESL Podcast 739 – Performing an Intervention

In the Learning Guide: Get a full transcript (written version of every word you hear), vocabulary list and sample sentences, and comprehension questions.
In “What Else Does it Mean,” learn the other meanings of “cornered” and “to cut back.”
In the “Culture Note,” learn about “Drinking Over the Holidays.”
“Some American holidays are “associated with” (connected to) “excessive” (too much) “drinking” (consumption of alcohol). This is especially true for “New Year’s Eve”…” – READ MORE in the Learning Guide

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on Monday, November 14th, 2011 at 12:00 am and is filed under Announcements.
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8 Responses to “Podcasts This Week (November 14, 2011)”

I m having a ball ,when I m surfing Eslpod.
Those stuff about assortment of dishes and harvest festivals ran vy Jeff are really cool.
In fact, I heard in a tv show “senior hayride” was a part of the dialog of the tv show script.
It was cool because I remebered jeff discussing it.
So,I know what the girl mean when she said “I met him first in the senior hayride.”
If it wasn’t for Jeff clarification over the term, there was no way I would undrestand what they were talking about.
And ,I saw a movie on Friday night . The guy said” I want his head on the chopping block.”
Immediately ,Jeff’s lesson flash in front if my eyes and I explained the term to my friend who was watching the movie with me.
It was one those cool moments that you feel suprioity ,but feign humility
You know,it is very encouraging. You hear Jeff discuss sth. Later on,You come across the term in real life,and you think to yourself”oh,jeff discussed the term, i know what the term means.” You brag about it that you knew the term already,if thre is sb around:). All these good feelings are associated with jeff’s lessons. take me back to eslpod every day more determined than before.
You are obsessed with learning English,and finally, you find a source that help you learn what you have a strong passion for fast and easy.it brings out good feelings in you
I am telling you ,it feels right
It feels good.

Well, Lucy,
You never know!
When I was a child, I had to live in a village called Sin Chay Yar. As you can guess, villages are always associated with
rural areas or with countrysides of a country, where seasonal crops are grown. As turns out, almost all villagers in my
village earned their livings as farmers, as peasants.

Back in the past, those farmers had to rely only on the “rainfall” of that area to grow their crops. There was no dam nor
irrigation techniques to supply their plants with the water needed.

I can still recall those memories — As the raining season had just set in, the farmers started to prepare their farms to start off their new
season of “cultivation,” with the arrivals of “thunder” sounds, of gray clouds moving up across the sky, and of the melodies of rainbirds
singing hither and thither. After a short passage of the time, they found themselves as plowmen singing happily whilst ploughing on their
farms. Their singing tones making harmonies with the rhythm of the falling “raindrops” could be heard from a distance. I was so sure
they’d had their moments at that very moment and it seemed they couldn’t help singing the praises of the “raindrops.”
If truth be told of course, no one on this earth could deny that each “raindrop” has ever played a vital role in a life of a farmer!

With the passage of the time, I no longer lived in a village, but had to study at a university in a city, Pakokku. At the university, I was taught
about “how it rains” scientifically. From a scientific viewpoint, the clouds we see up in the sky are not something else, but the water itself in its
vapour form that has come from a sea or an ocean. Through the process of condensation of each water vapour, we see them as “raindrops”
falling down onto the ground.

Even though those memories are a thing of the past for me for the time being, the connection between the “rain” and a “farmer” has always
come into my mind whenever I try to get a hang of the English language whilst following my dreams in this work-a-day world.

Lucy, I’m wondering if you can see that your listeners have a “thing” more or less connected to those farmers in the past?!
Now we are working hard to grow the crops of “our English skills.” But without the “ESLPod” raindrops, our “crops” would be of low-quality,
of run-of-the-mill, and of nothing-to-write-home-about. Lucky for us, we have this “ESL Podcast Team” cloud — a cloud that precipitates (rains)
new “ESLPod” raindrops weekly — for our “crops” to get watered. Again I dare say that each one of us couldn’t help singing the praises of “ESLPod”
raindrops. They never know! Every “ESLPod” raindrop has ever played a vital role in our quests for English language.

Well, Lucy,
So much thanks for your “raindrops.”

OK, it’s true if someone thinks that I’m practicing my writing skill.
It’s also true if I’m asked if I’m expressing my “thankfulness” to the ESL Podcast Team.
Hmm…. Am I killing two birds with one stone? Maybe… so so, who never know! But Peter might know.

you have a very nice way to practicing your writing skill … so I´m practicing my reading skill in a nice way and any day I will write about the black-gray-blue sky in the early morning and the moment when the sun shines in my room.

Thank you so much for the extra information about the word “lucid” which explains why Lucy is so good at English language.

It is amazing you are so knowledgeable with names.

Chinese has an old saying: Name is even more important than look (facial features, being pretty or handsome).

Thank you also for your kind advice about my use of English. Yes, my mind had been thinking of the sentence I wrote. Was it right? Was it wrong?

If I had not written the sentence here, I would not be thinking about it and might never learn.

I have been writing here for one year now (I can’t believe it that one whole year has gone just like that), and I am more confident with my English this year than last year. But I still need to work a lot harder because I have to get use to doing composition (Myo Ko Ko is excellent with composition, I have to learn from him).